It is indeed strange that in the eyes of the New York Times, the coronavirus poses a test to only the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and its spread across the country is exclusively the fault of the Chinese system of government. What about the spread across Europe?
Neither the less, with the WHO’s announcement that COVID-19 is now a pandemic, the time for containment appears over and the move to social distancing must happen across the world in earnest.
Different systems and cultures have led to different responses from country to country in dealing with the same situation, but all the countries should work together to combat this outbreak and its challenges.
By mid-2019, economic experts no longer pondered if a recession would occur, but instead when it would strike.
With a political system so unashamedly skewed in favour of the rich at the expense of the majority of the American public, is it any wonder that Americans are increasingly looking for an alternative to the current political and economic status-quo?
There is a strong possibility that as neither Biden nor Sanders can unite their party’s supporters overall, it could in fact deliver their worst-case scenario and hand the current president another four years in office.
Much of the mainstream media are now in a state of panic and have moved into full-Bernie- attack-mode. The majority of media narratives, including fear mongering over the Senators health, bizarre comparisons with Donald Trump and reframing the democratic socialist as a nihilistic anti-capitalist, are largely recycled from 2016.
Among the rumours that appeared shortly after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, US Senator Tom Cotton’s ‘conspiracy theory’ goes too far.
With businesses across the country steadily returning to work and international financial authorities and institutions confident in the measures taken by State planners, China’s road to economic recovery appears well under way.
Though the current coronavirus outbreak has only been with us a matter of months, society’s response to it has followed a similar pattern to previous health emergencies, with rises in extreme discrimination twined with examples of real compassion.
Western nations often believe that they hold a monopoly over multilateralism and cooperation, but they do not. In fact, Asia is currently one of the most vibrant hot spots for multilateral cooperation, encompassing everything from trade to development, security to culture.
In addition to the rising tide of xenophobia, there is a sea of speculation and misinformation. Many columns in leading publications have sacrificed the most fundamental journalistic principle of reporting the truth in favour of spreading rumour and baseless speculation.
